Any transceiver is better than none! The new three-antenna transceivers are faster in
finding a buried person in an avalanche than the older single antenna transceiver. This is
especially true for the naive user.

I recrunched their figures for two buried tranceivers for experienced users but decided to add the median value into the mix.

Medians put less weight on outlier values and I think give a better view of the data. In this case it would seem that two of the simpler 3 antenna beacons give markedly better performance and the Ortovox F1 is almost as good as the Pieps DSP and Ortovox S1. Overall the Pieps DSP is the fastest beacon to use although the ascending sequence of results look a bit odd.

What does standard deviation tell us? Well it could be an indication of how intuitive the beacon is. In this case the S1 looks like the best of the more complex 3 antenna beacons but it is still beaten by the Ortovox D3 (219€) and Tracker DTS (238€). If you are on a budget either the Ortovox D3 or Ortovox F1 (189€) do the job. I assume that a small amount of training would reduce the STDDEV of the F1.

I’d not actually seen that, just scanning it I see they don’t find the vast difference for the Pulse that’s reported anecdotally elsewhere. I’ve found some of the reports for the apparent relative speed of the Pulse highly unbelievable from our experience with having trackers, f1’s and pulses, it’s reassuring to see I’m not alone

Not sure what you mean by “...their figures for single burials ... not looked in detail about the multiburial ...”.
Surely all the tests were multiple (2 transceiver) burials?

“… I assume that a small amount of training would reduce the STDDEV of the F1 ...”
The report says “...using the heli-ski guides as knowledgeable testers. These guides and their clients use the Ortovox F1” , so these subjects were already most familiar with it. I’m not knocking the F1, just saying more training would probably help all the figures.

Thanks Martin. Yes my mistake. I will update the post above to make this clear and update the table later (I OCR’d it so that must be where the figure got muddled). I will attach the spreadsheet to a later post for anyone who wants to look a bit more at the figures and also look at the inexperienced user figures.

What you say it quite correct about the F1. They were already familier with it so the high STDDEV must be for another reason. What could this be?

I would expect the F1 to be be quite good at multiburials compared to a D3 as the beacon doesn’t lock onto the strongest signal so it should be easier to filter out distant beacons with the volume control. I suspect a technique where you mark the point where you first heard a multiple signal then return to this point and focus on the 2nd signal. Of course that sounds ok in theory.

If you are considering a new transceiver or just wondering how your old clunker stacks up? You should read this review on single double and triple antenna transceivers - analogue and digital. Like you needed an excuse to blow $400???

It seems like the Mammut and D3 are the easiest beacons to use for novice users, followed by the S1. However the S1 scores the best search times, but only by a matter of seconds. It is hard to see much difference in the results for any of the digital beacons but novice users took twice as much time as experts (another couple of minutes). In four cases the F1 users were unable to find the second beacon in the required search time (420s search times) and the F1 so it was hard to draw any conclusions other than the beacon was far slower in this test for multivictim searches.

Expert multibeacon search

In stark contrast it seems that the F1 is amongst the best beacon in the hands of expert users. I guess those guides won’t be giving up on their trusty analogue technology just yet.

Here are a couple of data points for the frequence of multivictim burials:-

Tracker2 is no longer a “government IT project.” We started shipping last week. It will be a few weeks before they start landing in Europe.

Here’s my take regarding the Canadian beacon study that was presented at the ICAR meeting in Zermatt: it shows how little marginal difference there is in search times between all the digital beacons. The only statistically significant difference in search times was between the novices using F1’s versus the digital beacons. Between digital beacons, however, there were only differences on the order of seconds. Excavating those victims would take on the order of 10-20 minutes each. So what it really says is that the gains in survivability will be made during the shoveling phase, not the beacon search phase, even in multiple burials.

It’s interesting to note that there was no significant difference in the search times between the beacons with “marking” functions and those that simply use signal strength to isolate each beacon. The authors told me at ICAR that the people using the “marking” functions spent too much time pressing buttons and standing still, while the others were continuing to move through the debris. As we all know, beacons always work better when you just keep moving.

The guides involved in the study were all from Mike Wiegele Heli Skiing. They have been using F1’s for over a decade. And the F1 interface is very similar to the D3 interface. So the results certainly make good sense. I think it was a well-done study. In the past, most beacon tests have only involved professionals as the test subjects. But in this one, they included novices. They should be commended, as this is the vast majority of beacon users.

Tracker2 is no longer a “government IT project.” We started shipping last week. It will be a few weeks before they start landing in Europe.

Here’s my take regarding the Canadian beacon study that was presented at the ICAR meeting in Zermatt: it shows how little marginal difference there is in search times between all the digital beacons.

Good ! From our stable of F1’s, DTS’es and Pulses, I really rate the DTS. It’s the easiest one to instruct someone how to use in my opinion at least. Better still, the customer support is excellent, I broke the battery door on one and told BCA, I got a new transceiver before the end of the week which is either brilliant or “only” what I’d expect or both (I’ve a story about customer support I need to write up about another company which I guarantee is customer service in a way no-one could possibly expect)

I agree about the differences in practice between devices as well, I’ve not seen much real difference in performance and I’m happy to to be out with anyone using anything if they had some practice.